


fifteen minutes

by TheIcyQueen



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Humor, Friendship/Love, Multi, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24895804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyQueen/pseuds/TheIcyQueen
Summary: Her plan was simple: A quick nap before more studying. But if there's one thing Ash should know by now, it's that there isn't a grade in the world important enough to ruin naptime for Chris and Josh. Oh no. Oh nononono. This is one nap that won't be interrupted, no matter how much she pretends to complain.
Relationships: Ashley Brown/Chris Hartley/Josh Washington
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	fifteen minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesperadoRaspado](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesperadoRaspado/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Naps](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/637552) by Lunchador. 



> I guess this is the part where I make the less-than-shocking revelation that these three are absolutely my fav ot3 of all time...
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> If you're in this boat with me, puh-LEASE check out the linked art by lunchador that inspired all this. It's just...it's so good. It'll make your heart warm ;)

On paper, the plan had been simple: Get home from class, take a forty-five minute nap, wake up, and then squeeze in a little more studying for tomorrow’s final before figuring out what to do for dinner. No sweat, right?

Wrong.

Her memories before the alarm were sticky and syrupy like cotton candy left out in the sun, but she _could_ recall a couple pieces-parts…things like grumbling that the a/c was still on the fritz as she kicked her pants off and stumbled into a pair of pajama shorts, rolling her eyes when she walked into the bedroom to see she hadn’t been the only one who’d decided on a catnap, having to shove a bunch of shit off the nightstand to make room for her phone…then her head had hit the pillow and there was nothing—sweet, blissful _nothing_ —until the trill of her alarm. 

She didn’t open her eyes immediately, instead pulling in a breath and letting it out in a groggy sigh. There were a couple of answering grumbles at that, but she was still just a bit too foggy to notice. With a yawn so wide, so leonine, that it threatened to crack her jaw, Ashley went to grab for her phone, her arm numbly reaching towards the side table. Her fingertips barely bumped the corner…

And then her arm was pushed away by some outside force, thwarting her efforts in one fell swoop.

She made another drowsy sound, frustrated, yes, but not nearly enough to open her eyes. It took her a moment to swallow the sleep from her throat, and oh, how she ached for a glass of water just then. She probably could’ve asked for one…eh, she knew the odds of actually having one brought to her were slim. So instead, she settled on asking a question she knew she was _guaranteed_ an answer to: “Whose face is in my friggin’ boobs?”

There was a pause.

“It’s not mine,” Chris mumbled, more snore than voice. “At least…don’t _think_ it’s mine…”

Typical. 

“Guilty as charged,” came Josh’s voice from the general area of her ribs. 

Even _more_ typical.

Part of her—the part quickly rising to the land of the waking again—considered asking the logical, if not predictable, follow-up question of _why_ his face was in her boobs, but that was when Chris started squirming.

“Who’s on my arm?”

Ashley wriggled for a second to try and place her…placement. It was a no-go, though, as the weight of Josh’s arm slung over her middle had all but bolted her to the spot. “Me, I think,” she yawned.

“Me _definitely_ ,” Josh added, something about his tone carrying the tacit message that no, he would _not_ be moving anytime soon, even if that meant Chris _lost_ the arm in question. “My turn.” He was trying to sound sleepier than he actually was, Ashley thought, though it was difficult to get a good bead on him with his voice so muffled by the fabric of her tank top. “Which one of you numbskulls set an _alarm?_ ”

As if he needed to ask.

Still, Chris was the one to speak up first, Ash feeling a weird movement under her pillow and against her hand as he flexed his fingers to tempt new blood into his arm. “I have never… _in my life…_ set an alarm. _Fate_ is my alarm clock.”

“Your _stomach_ is your alarm clock,” she shot back with a sleepy smile. Seeing her opportunity, she reached behind herself again, trying to simultaneously grab her trilling phone and shift enough to let Chris move his arm…

And again, she was shot down.

“Ugh…c’mon, quit it…I gotta get up.”

Chris made a weird little noise probably meant to be a laugh. “That’s a funny use of the word ‘ _gotta_.’” He groaned, and though her back was mostly to him, it was easy enough to imagine him smacking blindly at the nightstand until his hand found her phone. A couple seconds later, the alarm stopped, leaving the bedroom relatively silent. There was another tiny clatter as he set her phone back onto the nightstand (face-down, no doubt), and then the mattress and Josh groaned in perfect unison as he pulled his dead-arm out from under the pillows so he could reposition himself.

“See what you do, Ash?” Josh grumbled into her chest, “You ruin everything.”

“Um, excuse me?” Chris piped in. He rolled onto his side by the feel of it, spooning himself flush against Ashley’s back. He buried his face in her hair just long enough to press a kiss to the spot behind her ear. “I thought _I_ was the one who ruined shit in this arrangement.” 

Josh hummed a low ‘Mhm’ before readjusting himself as well. The movement felt _calculated_ somehow, and she realized only too late why that was. Or what the two of them had just done. “But the stuff you _don’t_ ruin, Cochise, Ash _does_ ,” he said, acting innocent as could be, as though they _hadn’t_ just successfully boxed her in.

“I really gotta study, guys…” But oh, her voice didn’t even sound convincing in her own head. “I have that big final in my—”

She felt Chris nuzzle his way into her shoulder, his arm adding to the weight (and warmth) of Josh’s; the combined effect was something like having a weighed blanket stuffed to the brim with horrible, unfunny jokes. “You have a 4.0, Ash.”

“And I’d like to _keep it that way_ …” Now she just sounded petulant. There was no doubt in her mind they already knew they’d won—they did, after all, _usually_ win. When it came to stuff like _this_ , anyway.

“How about this…I’ll make you a deal, Encyclopedia Brown,” Josh drawled, sounding like he was doing his very best impression of a used car salesman full of NyQuil. “Ten more minutes. Then you can hit the books.”

She thought it over for a moment, not needing to see his face to know he was grinning. “Five.”

“Mmm…let me just confer with my associate for a sec…” Without moving from her chest, he redirected his voice. “‘Ey, Cochise?”

“Ayup?”

“My offer was ten, she came back with five. Whaddya think?”

He was quiet for juuust long enough for her to wonder whether he’d fallen asleep again…but that suspicion was promptly squished. “I say fifteen.”

Despite knowing it was as good as admitting defeat, she laughed. “That’s not how you negotiate, you dunce.”

“Ma’am, I’ll have to ask you not to harangue my associate like that.”

“ _Harangue_.” 

“Ma’am, ma’am, please,” Chris added, “There’s no need for that kind of language.”

She groaned but decided to give in to the inevitable, snuggling herself contently between the two of them. “ _Fine_ ,” she said with a sigh about as convincing as any of Josh’s many, many awful character voices. “Fifteen minutes. Then I get up and study.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Chris repeated.

“Fifteen minutes,” Josh agreed.

It was bullshit. It was bullshit and they all knew it, but who the hell cared? A minute later they were dozing again, skin sticky in the close summer air, the room painted a deep gold by the late afternoon light, pillows and bodies piled with practiced mastery, and really, that was all that mattered. Everything else in the world would just have to wait.

…until her backup alarm began to ring.

**Author's Note:**

> All this month, I'm taking part of a writing challenge with a few of my writing buds, where we all try to write a drabble a day! I'm posting ALL of my daily drabbles on tumblr (queenofbaws) in the "Queenie writes challenge stuff" tag, but I'm trying to cherrypick a handful to put up here on AO3 too every few days.
> 
> Hope you're all hanging in there and staying safe, healthy, and well! <3


End file.
